Dallas County Foundation announces 2017 grant recipients

Tuesday

Apr 4, 2017 at 11:54 AMApr 5, 2017 at 3:24 PM

The Dallas County Foundation has announced its 2017 grant recipients. 29 organizations in Dallas County received grants, totaling $133, 347.81.

There were a total of 43 applicants this year and the 29 recipients received grants for as little as $800 and as much as $20,000. Since 2006 DCF has awarded over $965,347 to 189 projects in Dallas County.

The organizations and projects that received grants this year are:

1. Adel – Adel Oakdale Pride, $2,500

Oakdale Cemetery Improvements

2. Adel – Adel Home Care Services, $2,500

Food proofer cabinet, upgrade floor

3. Adel – Team Run Free, $2,000

Special needs run cart

4. Adel – Good Samaritan Food Pantry, $4,233

Air conditioning, office equipment

5. Adel Public Library, $2,800

Community room flooring

6. Bouton – Veteran’s Memorial, $5,000

Reconstruct memorial

7. Dallas County Food Bank of Iowa, $7,000

Dual axle delivery truck

8. Dallas County Habitat for Humanity, $5,000

Storage trailer

9. Dallas County Brenton Arboretum, $2,000

Color copier

10. Dallas Center – Spurgeon Manor, $3,000

Rehab equipment

11. DeSoto AHeinz57, $14,000

Construct and equip surgical suite

12. DeSoto Public Library, $1,017

Three laptops

13. Granger Hawks Dug Out Club, $5,600

Baseball bullpen fencing

14. Granger Parks and Recreation, $3,500

Lighting for Centennial Park

15. Granger Police Department, $1,882

In-car and body cameras

16. Minburn Comm. Betterment, $2,500

Parking lot improvements

17. Minburn Fire and Rescue, $800

Gas detection equipment

18. City of Minburn, $9,000

City Hall/library roof

19. Perry Historic Preservation, $1,500

Veteran memorial repairs

20. Perry – Nu Alpha Gamma Chapter, $3,630.47

Preserve history at one room country school house at Forest Park

21. Perry - Dallas Co. Conservation, $20,000

Raccoon River Valley Trail, third installment

22. Perry – New Hope Bargain Shoppe, $1,300

Display racks/point of sale iPad

23. Perry - Performing Arts HS, $2,500

Theatre equipment

24. Perry – Paces Program, $2,500

Student program equipment

25. Perry – Industrial Tech, $5,000

Mobile welding carts

26. Perry – Lutheran Home, $5,585.34

Intergenerational day care

27. Perry – Public Library, $2,000

Community room chairs

28. Perry – Art on the Prairie, $5,000

11’ Lighted metal sculpture

29. Waukee – Public Library Friends, $10,000

Children’s Library Updates

Scott Cirksena, Development Director of Dallas County Foundation, said that the Foundation was created as a result of the implementation of the Endow Iowa program by the State Legislature.

This year, they pulled up the beginning of the grant cycle up. They began receiving applications in November of 2016 into February of 2017 and were able to announce the recipients in March.

“The reason for that is we wanted to get grant dollars out to award winners earlier in the year so they can begin work on their projects,” Cirksena said. “So we’re on a little bit of a compressed schedule this year.”

The Endow Iowa program is the Foundation’s primary source of funding for the grants, but they also received funds from Grow Greene County for the second year in a row. Grow Greene County is a non-profit organization that raises money through the gaming industry at Wild Rose Casino in Jefferson.

The Foundation received $42,130.47 from Grow Greene County this year. Each year, Grow Greene County gives some of their revenue to the counties surrounding Greene County for community betterment projects.

“It allows us to give to more organizations and, again, it depends on applications and requests come in,” Cirksena said.

Vicki Lage, Grant Chairman for the Dallas County Foundation, said that they have a grant committee made up of seven people who decide where the grant money goes. The committee also checks to make sure the applications meet the guidelines, that they have followed instructions, and that they are complete.

Lage said that there are seven categories that they like to give grants to and they include: public/society benefits, education, environment/animals, health, and human services.

“We determine who should receive the grants and how much,” Lage said. “It usually takes about three hours to make that selection.”

Perry led the way with 10 projects receiving funds while Adel received five and other areas received fewer than that. Lage said that they will try to encourage other areas of the county to apply for grants in the future.

“We just need to encourage more people to apply in the Redfield area and in the Adel area,” Lage said. “We just have to get that knowledge out to them.”

The biggest recipient was the Raccoon River Valley Trail third installment, which received $20,000 from the DCF through a private donation from Bob and Jane Sturgeon. Lage said this was the last of the funding for the trail as they have given $20,000 to the project for three years now.

“We just felt that it was a very important thing to do, to bring people to the county and a very positive thing for the County to have that bike trail built to help Woodward, Madrid, Perry, Jefferson… all the towns on that bike trail,” Lage said. “The committee felt three years ago that that would be a commitment we would make and broke it down into these three installment payments.”

Other organizations that received at least $10,000 in grants this year include AHeinz57 Pet Rescue out of DeSoto, who received $14,000 for the construction and equipping of a surgical suite and the Waukee Public Library Friends, who received $10,000 for children’s library updates.